could stock up in Boston, take the trolley car to Portland, and fan out into the southern and western portions of the agricultural state or elect to travel along the Atlantic coast to Bar Harbor. The Poviches took the coastal route. By the time Simon sent for his wife and four daughters, his wife had died, so a stranger brought the children to Boston. Cousins of Simon helped him raise the children while he peddled with Nathan, and despite many hardships they learned English quickly. The oldest girl, Jennie, married a peddler, Joe Solovich, and each one opened a store in Bath in 1900. Soon after this, her sister Ida married a peddler named Miller, and they also settled in Bath. Nathan liked Bar Harbor. When he was twenty-one years old he sent for his cousin, Rosa, in Lithuania and married her as soon as she left the ship in Boston. The first ceremony by the justice of the peace was not enough for the seventeen-year-old Orthodox Rosa; Nathan had to be married again by a rabbi in Bangor. By 1888 he had opened a furniture store and could support a wife a year later when he brought Rosa to Bar Harbor. In those days and for many years afterwards, Bar Harbor was open for three months as a resort town for the extremely wealthy people from the rest of the world but was practically dead during the rest of the year. Ellsworth, a few miles west and sheltered from the ocean, was an all-year-round town with a sizable Jewish community and good transportation to Bangor and Portland. It Veteran Sportswriter Shirley Povich was in Ellsworth that Rosa gave birth to Eva, the first of their ten children. One day when Nathan was in Boston on a business trip, their The Povich Family second child, Samuel, aged two, slipped away from Rosa as she spoke to a customer and drowned in a rain puddle in the street. A neighbor told Rosa's grown children (the mother never spoke Even before the assassination of Alexander II, Jews had to be of this tragedy) how Rosa bravely wrapped the child in a blanket deliberately injured to avoid conscription in the czar's cruel and rode the train to Bangor to give him a Jewish burial. army, where they were forcibly converted to Greek Orthodoxy or Rosa had an unusually broad education for a woman of her shot. It was during this time that one-eyed Simon Povich and his day. She knew the Talmud and Torah as well as the men did, but twelve-year-old son, Nathan, left Baltomans, near Kovna, in addition she was secretly tutored in Russian, Lithuanian, Lithuania, in 1875. He started a family of businessmen and mathematics, and literature in Europe. In Bar Harbor she had a women, lawyers, and journalists in Maine. Why Maine? To earn a tutor, Mrs. Martha Simson, who became a devoted friend. living one had to peddle, and the license in Maine was only fifty Rosa's children remember that she was known as the dollars (half the price of a license in Massachusetts), and the prettiest woman in Bar Harbor. She kept a kosher home with the territory was wide open! Before the turn of the century, peddlers help of itinerant slaughterers and the meat merchants in Bangor. 40 41 Although the family was very friendly with the neighbors, none of about the size and shape of the building and prayed early each the children (Eva, Goldie, Celia, Morris, Abe, Jay, Shirley, Doris, morning in groups of at least ten, a minyan. In the Povich home, and Bernard) was allowed to eat outside their home. After a few five boys and the father made a good start on a minyan. The boys years the family moved to Boston, where it would be easier to would meet the six o'clock ferry from Boston and invite any men keep a kosher home, but Nathan and Rosa could not compete who "looked" like a Jew to join them. Another source was the man with Filene's department store. Customers came when Filene's who came to the store and asked, "Vos macht a Yid?" This was closed and expected to beat prices down. This finally drove the interpreted to mean, "Can a Jew make a living here?" family back to Bar Harbor. The architect, Mr. Tripp, suggested they should have about Meanwhile, Simon made a good living buying and selling real $2,000 to start. Harry Cohen finally collected $2,400 by appealing estate in Bath. In 1914 Bath was a boom town with five ship- to non-Jews like Reuben Baxter (who later became governor), building plants and more people looking for homes than the coast who gave the largest contribution, $200. Every Sunday three men could supply. He and Jennie persuaded Nathan and Rosa to move would go to adjacent towns to solicit funds. Mr. Gediman would to Bath. Simon gave them a lot to build a house on, and they felt entertain with his guitar, Maria Petlock would sing, and the lucky. Many other people were sleeping under porches and on children performed plays at the monthly fund raisers. the muddy streets. Nathan opened a furniture store that also sold Finally, a promissory note for $3,300 at 6 percent interest notions like collar buttons until World War II ended. They was signed, and the forty-two members, led by Simon Povich prospered. Everybody in the family worked in the store except (who gave $52), were ready to begin. Nathan, impatient with all Eva, who had married her second cousin Morris. the conflicting ideas presented to the architect, went ahead and Nathan bought a huge white house on the Kennebec River hired a contractor to build. On January 29, 1922, on a sunny soon after the family came to Bath, and it is this porch-encircled afternoon, 250 people gathered for the dedication of the house that is still a summer home for the visiting children and synagogue since the first floor was finished and under roof. grandchildren. On the wide stairway, the wall supports large oval Nathan Povich carried the Torah scroll, while Nathan Singer portraits of Nathan, Rosa, and their nine children. It is the custom carried the prayer book. They were followed by the American flag of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren to greet each picture and women carrying lighted candles. Morris Cohen, the first in the morning and to bid them all "good night" when they retire. cantor, sang Psalm 30. Three rabbis spoke, including the first Although many in the community were skeptical, the YMCA rabbi of the congregation, Charles Arek. Everybody sang Hatikva, offered the use of a room if Jewish services could be held early on the Israeli national anthem, and the Star Spangled Banner. The Friday evenings and on holidays to free the room for other wood stove in the corner gave enough heat to make this service activities afterwards. After holidays were observed in the Hall of a promising beginning. Eagles, the Severt Building, the Red Men's Building, and in a loft Bath could not afford a full-time rabbi. By 1927, however, the over the Solovich store, the wives formed a Hebrew Ladies synagogue could be recognized as the "Jewish Church" by the Society to raise funds for a synagogue. The first meeting was held Gentiles because the second floor was finished. On September 23, in Harry Aaronson's tailor shop. Twenty-six ladies—Rosa Povich; 1934, the mortgage was burned, the Ner Tamid (the ever-burning her daughter, Eva; the mesdames Erik Aaronson, Bloom, Brown, lamp) glowed, and a plaque naming the founders was installed. Cohen, Goldstein, Greenblum, Isaacson, Petlock, Shanblom, But the depression was too severe for twenty-six families, who Savage, Greenblatt, I. Singer, J. Solovich; more Poviches; and D. left for other states. After the Depression (1929-1945) a pulpitless Rosen from Brunswick—elected Mrs. Nathan Povich president rabbi would be invited for the High Holy Days. Now the lovely and Eva secretary. They raffled off an embroidered pillow cover little building is used on High Holy Days and occasionally during (made by Mrs. Povich), held parties, and donated funds. The the rest of the year. younger children, Doris and her brother Shirley, carried the A non-Jew, George Davenport, who owned a hotel in Boston, dishes home from the fundraisers. Meanwhile the men argued left a legacy that helps to maintain all religious buildings in Bath. 42 43 Of him it was said, "He lived like a fool but died like a gentleman." understanding of the players and the coaches. No one could Since 1925 each religious group in Bath gets $1,500 per year for accuse him of cruel, unwarranted attacks for the sake of personal repairs, and needy students are granted scholarships. advancement. He respected the need of the players for privacy and Among the Jews, education was paramount in Europe and in time to unwind after a game. America. While non-Jews dropped out of high school, Jewish Shirley served as a war correspondent with the U.S. Marines boys went on to college. The Smith family produced two doctors; in Iwo Jima and Okinawa during World War II. He too carried a the Levines produced three dentists; the Poviches produced gun, for as he says, the bombs dropped on everybody. He many lawyers and an internationally famous sportswriter, Shirley married Ethyl Friedman, a native of Washington. They have three Povich. Nathan Povich would bring tutors from Boston to prepare children—David, an attorney; Lynn, a former assistant editor of his sons for bar mitzvah, but these immigrants learned more U.S.